by Rachel Kane
“Maybe I could swing by there and help him,” Mason said. “I know Toby’s schedule is weird because of the bar, but I’m sure he’ll be there too.”
Judah shook his head. “Is everyone just going to carry him up and down the stairs every day? That doesn’t seem safe.”
Mason, who had personally made sure every outlet in Superbia Springs was properly grounded, and who had tested every banister to make sure the staircases were sturdy, had to agree with this. “If the place had an elevator, maybe—”
“But you know it doesn’t.”
“Hm. Maybe he could move in with Toby for a while? Wait, no, it’s the same problem there, Toby lives above the bar. More stairs.”
The solution was staring Judah right in the face. It just took him a while to see it. “Oh,” he said.
Mason looked over at him. “That sounds like you had an idea.”
“We have room,” he said. “I mean, we have nothing but room.”
“You want him to stay at Superbia Springs?”
“We’re a resort! It’s what we’re made for!”
Mason scratched his chin. “We do have the space…”
“There’s an elevator, so he doesn’t have to use the stairs. We’ll all be around, so we can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t need anything. And Liam won’t be able to accuse me of shirking my duties, because I’ll be right there at the house!”
“I mean, the thing about Alex is, he’d never agree to it. He’s too proud for that.”
“We can make him agree,” said Judah with a certainty he wasn’t sure he felt. “I’ll drive him to and from the bookstore. It’ll be simple. And if you say it’s okay, Liam won’t argue with me about it.”
“Didn’t I just say I didn’t like to be in the middle of brotherly fights?”
“It won’t be a fight, because it’s the right thing to do. The right way to make it up to Alex. Liam will see that.”
“Liam will see an extra houseguest who needs to be taken care of. One who won’t be paying.”
Judah squeezed Mason’s arm. “That’s where you’ll use your manly wiles to convince him.”
“Are you… Just let me ask, is there something going on between you and Alex? Something I’m not aware of?”
Judah sputtered. His mind suddenly raced. Something going on? Foolishness! How could Mason have thought something like that? Surely Judah hadn’t given any sign, any hint, of that interest in Alex that kept tickling at him.
“What? No, of course not. No. I just need to make up for the fact I nearly killed him.”
“You’re sure that’s all this is? You’re acting a little weird.”
“Weird is kind of my thing. Ask anybody.”
“I was just going to say, if there was anything like that between you, you should be careful.”
That was an odd thing to say, and Judah thought about it for a moment before saying, “Careful? Why?”
“If he hasn’t already told you, I probably shouldn’t say anything.”
“But you just did say something, so if you don’t give me any details, I’ll sit here imagining the worst.”
Mason’s hands slid up the steering wheel until they were touching at the top. He blinked, staring out the windshield at the farmland they were passing. “You keep this between us, okay? Don’t let on that you know anything.”
“Trust me, I’m good with secrets.” Was he? No one had ever confided anything in him. Maybe he was a born gossip, and had never been given the chance.
“Superbia is awful at them, and Alex would die if his life became gossip-fodder. But he had a really bad breakup, not too long before you guys arrived in town. A major breakup. I never liked the guy he was seeing, there was always something—well, I don’t want to get into all the gory details. All you need to know is, Alex was left pretty wrecked from it. He has made a few tries at dating since then, but I can tell his heart isn’t in it. So just…be careful with him, okay? Don’t get any ideas about him.”
The thought that Alex had a broken heart was as bad as the knowledge he had a broken ankle. Judah had the strangest urge to jump out of the truck and run all the way back to town to take care of him.
Which was foolish. Alex didn’t want to be taken care of.
He thought about that strange scene out on the road. The postcard Alex had been chasing. The way he’d been so lost in thought.
Was that related?
None of his business. Absolutely none. And Mason had given him a clear warning to stay away from that side of things with Alex.
“I won’t get any ideas,” Judah said, his mind busily working.
7
Alex
It was a day for Mulgrews. The first visit was from Violet Mulgrew, owner of Alex’s building. She was on her monthly circuit of her properties, collecting rent and dispensing judgment like the lord of the manor. She set her burgundy leather purse on the counter with a click.
“Tell me you didn’t break that thing here,” she said, gesturing at his cast. “I won’t have an insurance claim laid against my building.”
“No ma’am, I’m on the hook for this one, I’m afraid.”
She tutted. “Clumsiness doesn’t go well with business-sense. You’ve got the rent?”
While he wrote out the check for the month, she turned, taking the entirety of the little store into her critical gaze. He half-expected her to pull on a white glove and test the shelves for dust. At the sound of the check ripping from its spot in the checkbook, she turned her attention to him again. She took the proffered rent and gazed down at it. “What I’m charging you for this place is criminally low.”
“And I appreciate it more than I can say.” Every month, the same thing, and every month he smiled and gritted his teeth and got through it.
“Your brother, now he has some sense. While I don’t think his bar adds much to the appeal of Superbia, at least it is profitable.”
“The Unfinished Chapter is profitable!” protested Alex. “Mostly!”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t see how. I can’t recall ever walking in here and seeing a customer. I’m not sure this town needs a bookstore. We already have a library, where people can get books for free.”
“They don’t let you keep those,” he pointed out.
“Well, yes, I know what a library is, thank you.”
“And anyway, I do enough business to stay afloat, isn’t that all that’s necessary? Luckily, my overhead is low—”
“Your overhead is low because I am a generous woman. Although I wonder why I am being so generous, sometimes. I could rent this building to a fast-food chain and make vastly more. I can’t live off hopes and good wishes,” said the richest woman in town. “Think about that. Think about my generosity, and what you could do to expand this business.”
“I will, ma’am,” he said deferentially.
He was about to pat his back for having survived another month, when she paused near the window. The Problematic Faves display had caught her eye.
“What is this?”
He explained the concept.
“Books that the school board banned? But why would we want them here, if we’re trying to protect children from them?”
His throat dried up. “Because… Children shouldn’t be protected from good books. Overzealous school boards traditionally do a bad job picking which books are dangerous.”
She glanced back at him. “You know I’m a member of the school board.”
He couldn’t speak, so simply gave him a quick nod.
“The world may march on to depravity, Alex, but some of us prefer Superbia to stand athwart the tide. Our town is a little island of common sense in the roiling sea of modernity. We are, in a word, old-fashioned.”
There are some conversations you know better than to have. Some things look like conversation but they’re really bait, and once you’re on the hook, you’re doomed. Alex knew exactly what would come next, if he allowed her to go on. “They’re just books, Mrs. Mul
grew.”
She picked one up, looked at the cover, then looked back at him. “This? This is just a book? This is homosexual filth, Alex. I’m surprised at you. You know better than this.”
With anyone else in town, he could have put up a spirited defense of his book choices. He would’ve pointed out how desperately kids need LGBT representation in their stories, and what it was like growing up gay with nothing to read, no characters who looked anything like you. He’d been fortunate to have good friends who were gay, and his parents had always been supportive, but where were the books that told you that you were okay?
That was not a conversation he could have with Violet Mulgrew. The woman had caused so much trouble for everyone he knew, all over her weird hatred of gay people.
She owned the building, after all. If he explained exactly why the books were important to him, then he’d find himself without a bookstore at all.
Funny how you could think your life is your own, but really you’re just being held hostage, every minute of the day.
He was glad when she finally left. That was enough Mulgrewing for one day.
“Well look at you, Jimmy Stewart, all unable to walk and sitting at your window. Witnessed any terrible crimes?”
Thaddeus Mulgrew—Violet’s brother-in-law—had a way of seeming to lounge even while standing upright, like the entire world might lean to the side so he could prop his elbow onto it, swirling ice cubes around a mint julep. His cream-colored suit was lightweight, although Alex imagined he wore it mostly so he could complain of the heat. He watched as the town historian drew the matching hat from his head, the coral hat-band offering a vividly tropical stripe of color, and set it on the rack near the door.
“Thaddeus, you’re just the man I wanted to see,” Alex said, reaching for his crutches to stand up.
“You sit there. Don’t you get up on my account. I heard all about your accident. Surprised it wasn’t an alligator in that gutter. You don’t know what lurks beneath Superbia. Nasty things. Nasty.”
Everyone who had come into the store had expressed sympathy over the ankle, and there were even a couple of signatures on his cast now, and while Alex was never the ungrateful type, he wasn’t really enjoying the attention. Maybe the pain just had him in a permanent bad mood. He’d thought about taking the pills—it was time for the next dose, according to the bottle—but after making a fool of himself in front of Judah, narcotics were the last thing he wanted. So he’d stuck with ibuprofen, thankful that he had a bottle down here in the store, less thankful when he’d realized it would barely touch the gnawing pain in his broken bones.
At least Thaddeus would provide some distraction. Alex said, “I’ve got a little research project for you.”
“I swear, launching directly into your request without even a moment of sweet talk? I’m going to have to have words with your mother about how she raised you.”
Alex laughed, and shifted in the office chair he’d been wheeling himself around in. But shifting was the wrong thing to do—some slight angle of pressure on the cast, and he found himself wincing with pain.
The only thing worse than people’s sympathy was to look like you needed sympathy.
Thaddeus clucked his tongue. “I’ll let you off easy this time because of your obvious agony. Dear child, have you considered taking a sick day? I understand it’s all the rage with those of you who sully your hands with labor to earn your daily bread.”
“We can’t all live off our inheritances,” Alex pointed out.
“Our meager inheritances. I swear, if I’d known how stingy Granddaddy was going to be with the legacies, I wouldn’t have paraded through my sweet 16 party in a debutante’s gown.”
It would take some doing to get rid of the image of Thaddeus Mulgrew in a ball-gown, his precise little mustache twitching, but at least it brought a brief smile to Alex’s face. He was the one bright spot in the grim world of Mulgrews.
He rolled himself to the counter and picked up his phone, flipping to the picture Judah had sent him earlier. “Check this out.”
“Oh dear, a phone. You know, in my day, a telephone was a blunt instrument suitable for bashing in an unruly lover’s skull. With these little panes of glass, what can you even do, tap him on the forehead? But oh my, what have we here?” Thaddeus lit up. His eyes, normally louche and half-closed, opened wider. “You know what these are?”
“I know where they are. I’m hoping to get the story on them. What they’re doing here in Superbia. You recognize them?”
Thaddeus raised a graying eyebrow. “I suspect you’re playing a trick on me, young Mr. Roth.”
Alex wondered why what should have been a simple question should have elicited such a reaction from Thaddeus.
“There’s no trick. I’m just trying to find out about them. Their history.”
Thaddeus handed back the phone. “No, child, I think not. There are some subjects even an able historian such as myself should not delve into. May I ask where you got that picture?”
Alex was surprised to find himself hesitant to say.
Maybe not too surprised. The antagonism between the Mulgrews and Coopers ran deep, and while Thaddeus wasn’t vindictive and evil in the same way Violet was, it wasn’t something Alex wanted to get in the middle of.
Especially not when the ibuprofen was already wearing off, and the throbbing in his ankle was getting harder and harder to ignore.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say.” He clicked his phone off and set it back on the counter.
“If you’re trying to build suspense, you must know I am a patient man. It won’t be too hard to find out who gave you the picture. I am assuming you didn’t take it yourself. You would’ve had more of an eye for the atmospherics, the lighting, the drama of the situation.”
“It wasn’t me. Judah Cooper found them.”
At the mention of the name, Thaddeus stepped back. “Cooper,” he said, his voice filled with wonder. “I suppose I should get out of here before I burst into flame.”
“I know, I know—”
“If my dear sister-in-law Violet knew I was being asked to assist a Cooper, she might send me down the gutter with those alligators.”
“But you recognize the lions.”
“Of course I recognize them, that is not the issue. But of all people, you should understand why I can’t intervene in your little research project. You’ve spent nearly as much time studying the town as I have. You know the fault-lines that threaten to break Superbia in two.”
On the one hand, Thaddeus had a flair for the dramatic. On the other, the clashes between the Coopers and Mulgrews had been pretty big. Nobody wanted to be collateral damage.
“I have to say I’m surprised at you,” Thaddeus continued. “Now, I know you’ve been sweet on the Coopers since they came to town. You’ve taken sides. That’s all well and good, we all do that. Lord knows I’ve done my part to help them defeat Vile Violet, a transgression for which I will never stop paying. But if Judah Cooper is coming to you personally for this, it has to mean something. I can’t imagine he doesn’t know what these lions represent, and I’m surprised he would try to ensnare you in their story.”
“Have you met Judah? He’s not exactly the ensnaring kind.”
“Yes, I have met him. He is quiet, intelligent, and an absolutely deceitful liar.”
No amount of pain would stop the laugh that bubbled up through Alex at that moment. “Judah? A liar? What on earth, Thaddeus?”
But the historian pressed his lips together. “Back in my day, I suppose we had it harder than you boys today. We didn’t have those little phone applications that let you find other boys, willing boys, boys who would do anything with you on a lazy afternoon. No. In my day, we had to keep all that a secret. You couldn’t say anything. So you had to become a master of looking into men’s hearts. A single glance would be weighted with a month’s worth of silent talking. And I’m telling you, with a lifetime’s experience of judging men’s souls, that boy is a liar. Tha
t bumbling exterior, that egghead manner. You don’t see something underneath that? You believe what he chooses to show to the world?”
When the bell over the door jingled, Thaddeus turned smoothly from Alex, his face immediately falling into that rakish grin he normally displayed. “Why Mrs. Fortune, I declare, I haven’t seen you in an age.”
“Is that Thaddeus Mulgrew?” said the woman entering the store, lighting up as the historian took her hand and gave it an air-kiss.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Thaddeus murmured to Alex.
“You’re crazy,” said Alex. “That’s ridiculous. No. I mean, I appreciate it. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. But absolutely not.”
Nothing was touching the pain. He knew he was going to have to take the real medicine soon enough, but between the ankle and Thaddeus’ weird performance earlier, he felt ragged and raw.
“Come on!” said Judah. “It’s perfect! What, do you think you’re going to crawl up those stairs every night to your cramped little apartment, where some bookcase might fall on you at any moment? We have so many rooms.”
“Sure, and I suppose Liam’s going to put me up in the Presidential Suite, for free.” He didn’t mean to sound so combative, but this was a ridiculous idea. He couldn’t move into Superbia Springs. No matter how much Judah urged him.
An absolutely deceitful liar.
What the hell had Thaddeus been talking about? There was nobody more earnest than Judah. Even now, he was blushing with the exertion of trying to convince Alex to come.
“Maybe not the Presidential Suite, but—”
“Liam’s a businessman, just like me,” said Alex. “You can’t survive by giving things away. What would I do, if I just handed free books to everyone who walked in?”
“You’d be a library. They do actually exist.”
Echoes of his conversation with Violet. “Not my point!”
“Anyway, I’ve already picked the room. It’s not super-fancy, but it’s near the elevator so you can get downstairs easily, and I can drive you to work every morning—”